‘X-Men Apocalypse’ set in the 1980s with ‘mass destruction’ coming, says director

Director Bryan Singer is returning to the X-Men franchise this May with X-Men: Days of Future Past, and audiences may be pleased to hear Singer thinking about the next chapter: X-Men: Apocalypse.

Speaking with Total Film in their latest magazine, Singer confirms the development is progressing well.

“We’re currently breaking the story. We’re almost ready to go. Dan Harris, Michael Dougherty and Simon Kinberg are in the office across the street from me, working on story stuff right now. It’s great to have Dan and Michael back.”

While the film will have themes which deal with ancient mutants, the film is set in the 1980’s : “We’re going to deal with the notion of ancient mutants – the fact they were born and existed thousands of years ago. But it’ll be a contemporary movie – well, it’ll take place in the ’80s… The ’80s is a period now – it’s hard for me to believe that!”

The filmmaker also teased that the scope of the picture will be quite massive: “Apocalypse will have more of the mass destruction that X-Men films, to date, have not relied upon. There’s definitely now a character and a story that allow room for that kind of spectacle… I don’t want to get too specific, but we’ll introduce familiar characters in a younger time. That’ll be fun to show the audience. I call these movies in-between-quels. It’s a mind-f*** sometimes in terms of where things fall in the timeline!”

Singer has found renewed interest in the franchise, exploring the back story of the original X-Men, saying there are more stories he’d like to tell beyond Apocalypse.

“Yeah, there actually are [more stories I want to tell]. It all stems back to when I did [the first] X-Men. You always want to know where a character’s going to go, what their future’s going be like. You can always sequelise. But on that film I also had actors asking ‘Who am I? Where did my character come from?’ So as a director you always need a backstory to give your actors. It may not be the right backstory, but it’s one you can give the actor to help them understand their character. These prequels are really exciting for me because they give me a chance to explore ideas I came up with more than a decade ago.”

X-Men Days of Future Past opens in theaters May 23, 2014

X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters screens in 2016.